Local Food - Viewing the Movie Ingredients

A friend let me know that the movie Ingredients - about the local food movement - was playing at UAA Sunday afternoon.  It's not like we haven't seen enough movies lately, but this is a topic I'm interested in - I've even blogged about it a little while I was in Thailand because I was working with a group helping farmers.  The topic was important and I discovered the term CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) while in Thailand.

It turns out the film was produced by Brian Kimmel, the brother of Mara Kimmel, Ethan Berkowitz's wife.  It's a good film and I encouraged him to submit it to the Anchorage International Film Festival 2010.

The film discusses food - particularly local and chemical free food - with farmers and restaurateurs in different parts of the US. 

The film was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with local restaurateurs and local food agents, including [Rob Kineen] a [executive] chef from Orso's.  It looks like Anchorage, despite our climate and relatively short growing period, is not significantly far behind the rest of the country.  Issues of food security (what would happen if we were cut off by a major catastrophe?), health, taste, food economics and corporate farming all came up.  We're moving along, but clearly need some sort of organizing body to promote local foods among consumers, restaurants, and farmers.  And programs in the schools where kids actually get out onto farms and see where food comes from seems like a good idea.  They have such programs in other cities.